Because of the increasing demand of electrical/hybrid vehicles, tremendous effort has been devoted to the development of energy storage devices with high-energy density and good durability. Conventional energy storage devices, for example, batteries, have limitations such as short cycle life, relatively slow charging/discharging currents (i.e. low power), and slow response to fast charging/discharging. Electrochemical supercapacitors have attracted much attention due to their excellent cycling performance, higher power density, and fast response. Supercapacitors are typically one of two types. The first is the interfacial double-layer capacitance with electric charge storage on high-surface-area carbon materials. The second is pseudocapacitance, which is associated with the redox reaction of metal oxides or conducting polymers. Among the pseudocapacitance candidate materials, much effort has been dedicated to the construction of supercapacitors using polyaniline (PANI). PANI has been considered as one of the most promising and versatile conducting polymers for supercapacitor applications because of its high capacitance, low cost, and easy synthesis. Although PANI possesses high theoretical capacitance of 2000 F/g, compared to many other microporous/mesoporous materials, PANI generally has a relatively low surface area, which limits the accessible surface area of PANI for electrolyte ions. PANI also suffers from poor cycling stability caused by swelling and shrinking of the polymer backbone during charging/discharging. These drawbacks greatly hinder the use of PANI as the supercapacitor electrode in practical applications. Thus, there remains a need for improved PANI materials for use in electrode and electrochemical applications. The present novel technology addresses this need.